METEOROLOGY. 239 
of motion is from twenty to thirty-nine miles per second, more than twice 
as great as that of our earth in space. 
The shooting stars fall either singly or in showers. The latter occur 
periodically, appearing most conspicuously from the 9th to the 14th of 
August, and from the 12th to the 14th of November. The unparalleled fall 
of stars which occurred in North America during the night of November 
13, 1833, in which at least 240,000 fell in nine hours, first induced Olmsted 
and others to suppose that a certain connexion existed between these 
showers and certain days of the year. The fall of meteors observed at 
Cumana by Humboldt and Bonpland on the 12th of November, 1799, and 
by others in the United States, in Greenland, and in Germany, was called 
to mind, as also the showers in October of 902, 1202, and 1366; on the 9th 
and 10th of November, 1787, in Southern Germany; on the 12th and 13th 
of November, 1822, in Potsdam; on the 18th of November, 1831, on the 
Spanish coast: and on the 12th and 13th of November, 1832, in England, 
France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and Russia. Since then the 
November meteors have occurred regularly about the same time of the 
year. With respect to the shower of 1833, Olmsted has shown that all the 
meteors radiated from the same point in the heavens, this point lying in 
the constellation Leo. According to Encke’s calculation from observations 
made in the United States at that time, all the stars proceeded from that 
point in space towards which the earth’s motion was directed at the time. 
Olbers thinks it exceedingly probable that a recurrence of the great shower 
may be looked for every thirty-four years. 
A scarcely less regular meteoric shower takes place from the 9th to the 
14th of August. Being observed about St. Lawrence's day, it is sometimes 
called the shower of St. Lawrence. Muschenbroek, in 1762, first called 
attention to the abundance of these meteors in August; but Quetelet, 
Benzenberg, and Olbers, have more particularly determined the periodic 
return of the phenomenon. Other periodic showers have been indicated as 
occurring in April, towards the end of November, and from the 6th to the 
12th of December. 
Simultaneously with the shooting stars of November, 1833, were seen 
great balls of fire, and there is now no doubt that both are essentially 
identical. A common peculiarity of all fire balls is, that after being seen 
for a short time, they burst with a loud noise and the evolution of smoke ; 
other than this, they are quite different at times. Sometimes they exceed 
in size the apparent diameter of the moon, and shine with such lustre as 
even in tropical countries to be visible in bright day; their apparent 
diameter, however, is no doubt greatly overestimated. Some of the most 
remarkable of these fiery globes were observed on March 31, 1686, in Italy 
and Germany; July 9, 1686, in Saxony, visible for seven minutes; March 
19, 1719, in England, in brightness almost equal to the sun; December 11, 
1741, in England, visible about one P.M., during a bright sun ; November 
26, 1758, in England, splitting asunder with a fearful noise; July 10, 1771, 
in France and England, where the ball must have been over 1000 feet in 
diameter; August 18, 1783, in England, France, and the Netherlands, 
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